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From Broke to…Less Broke

12 years ago our little K car died in Jerseyville leaving us stranded in the dark and cold. I don’t know what we were doing out on a cold January evening. I can’t begin to imagine what we thought we needed. I do know that I had a job, we had a mortgage and we had an infant son and an old maroon K-car that my great aunt had either sold or given us. 

Money was tight and we didn’t have any cash on us. If money was so tight, why were we out? I don’t know. Maybe we just had to get diapers or something. But it was clear that money was tight – extremely tight – because Julie went to Arby’s to get warm after the car died and couldn’t afford to buy anything. Maybe those were the days before fast food restaurants took debit cards. Anyway, she attempted to nurse the baby in some privacy in a booth and couldn’t even pony up to buy a glass of water and her milk never let down without a drink of water.

I had a job that payed the salaried equivalent of $1o/hour. I made more with that company when I traveled for them and I guess we got used to spending the travel pay because when we had our first son and I came off the road everything got tough for us. I had to find a new job.

The car was seriously broken. Dad came to get us, a friend helped me haul the car home the next day and I began tearing down the engine in the garage…I think the head was warped.

That was a cold winter. Cold days and nights taking my car apart, hoping I could put it back together. Knuckles sore from holding cold metal in my hands. Soon I had the parts back, the engine together. Something else broke and got fixed. It happened a couple more times before I began a new job in St. Louis on Feb. 26 of 2001. I got myself a 50% pay increase!

For the next 7 months I drove that jalopy back and forth to St. Louis to a very challenging job with very challenging hours. I had to be in the office at 6AM, the beginning of the contracted support window for clients in London. That meant I had to leave home at 4:30. Shortly after starting my new job they put me in the on-call rotation complete with two different 25 pound laptops and a big, heavy book of contact information. There were many nights of being on call. Lengthy calls with phone techs in Southern California hospitals. “Was the machine a Nightshade or a Portland? Windows NT or OS2? Is CP running? Telnet into the attached device. Type in ‘A01RC2’ and press Enter.” Over and over. Night after night. Up again, home again, phone is ringing again. The primitive cell phone they gave me only worked in one room of our house…in one position, furthest South on the couch. I can’t say the work was entirely unpleasant but it was certainly demanding. I went without sleep but I learned a tremendous amount in a short time.

Toward the end of month 6 my 4-cylinder car decided it wanted to be a 3-cylinder car. I’m really not much of a mechanic. I just did what had to be done to make it last as long as I could. We reached a point where I just couldn’t fix it anymore. Shortly after 9-11 we bought a new car with a warranty! A Warranty! That was a financial mistake but we sold the car at 235,000 miles and I only rotated the tires and changed the oil. The Ford mechanics did the rest.

I excelled at my job. I was a total hack when they hired me but I learned quickly. My dad sometimes asks how I learned to do what I know how to do with computers. I guess there are two answers. First, I was hungry. Second, I was thrown into the fire.

So now we are at the point in the post where you ask the question, “What does this have to do with farming?”

Everything. Stay with me.

11 years ago I had the beginnings of a family, a $35,000 mortgage, $14,000 in school loans and a $15,000 car loan at 0% . I know because it’s all in my diary. Yes, I tell my diary about my money problems. 29% of my after-tax income went to the car payment and associated car expenses ($300 gas, $308 payment, $86 insurance, $24 maintenance). We regularly bought hamburger helper and Eggo waffles and cereal…foods we can’t imagine eating today both for health and budget reasons. Magazine subscriptions, clothes, toys for the kids…I don’t even know what all we bought. Little things that by themselves were not harmful but together? Remember that big raise I got when I changed jobs? We spent it. All of it. The next raise too. No matter how much money I made we managed to spend it all. We went from below the poverty line to relative comfort but totally strapped for cash.

All of those debts and more are behind us because of that diary. We snowballed our way through them one at a time, paying one off to accelerate payment on the next. The house was the worst at 8.5% but because of the loan amount it had to wait till last. The car was at 0%, four school loans averaged $80/month and 4%. We picked one of those to target first, lowered our car insurance to $75 and went on the attack with our food budget. Really, we found and plugged so many financial leaks life suddenly got easier. Why hadn’t we been paying attention to where our money was going?

Skipping the details, we quickly got far enough ahead we bought a second house (mistake), moved there (bigger mistake) and sold the starter home (relief). After a few years of remodeling the new home it was time to move again. Then we moved again. Now we are at the farm.

Every few years we have to re-learn the lesson we first learned 12 years ago. It is easy to spend all of our money. For instance, our first winter here, we were used to having the house at 74 degrees. Natural gas was super cheap in the suburbs but propane here is expensive and the house is drafty. So we licked our wounds and turned the thermostat down to 57. Everybody put on a sweater, we put a space heater in a small room and we did all right. Once we got the wood stove we were back to normal. But that first winter was an expensive lesson. Based on recent writings it should be obvious that I’m in the middle of a financial lesson again now. But the other thing I take from this is that it’s really not that hard to fill in the holes I dig myself into…as long as I can work. But how much longer will I work? One of these days I’m going to be 80. How will I have time to cherish my grandchildren if I’m still a database janitor at age 80?

If you intend to hold on to your farm for any length of time at all you can’t keep falling into the spending trap. Like any other crop, you have to make your money grow and protect it until harvest. But even then you aren’t done. Once that newly harvested money is in your hand there are any number of ways the world seeks to take it from you. Just a little here…a little there…like mice stealing grain. Enough mice and you’ve got a real problem. Imagine inflation acting like mold, decaying your crop over time. How do you protect against that? We have to be diligent. Banks aren’t paying to hold money today. CDs aren’t worth buying. Land and cattle are near nominal all-time highs. How do we grow money in this environment?

These are the problems we have to solve. This is where we have to apply our time. Plug the holes in your budget and you might be surprised how quickly you can buy that dream farm. Forget to plug holes and you might be surprised how quickly you will lose it.

I have to add, too, that, like the job change listed above, when you finally get your land you will face a steep learning curve. You can do it. It will be tough but you can do it. Being both hungry and in the fire will do wonders for your work ethic. Just keep focused on minimizing expenses. Financial stress ruins relationships. Keep your expenses few and you’ll have an easier time focusing on your goals…especially your relationship goals.

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Both Grasshopper and Ant

Oh, Aesop. You make it all so simple. The ant is the ant and the grasshopper is the grasshopper. But I am a little of each. More of one than the other on certain days.

The Bible makes the same point in a more personally applicable way:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

Work hard and put a little away for uncertain times. I get it. I totally do. But in spite of what my children think, I am not a machine.

I remember thinking my dad was a machine. He was so big. So fast! So strong! Dad would work long hours and changing shifts at the mine then come home to play catch or work on a remodeling project. He took leading roles in plays, took college classes and was active in our church. He would pick up the new issue of Compute’s Gazette to work with my sister on the coding project listed in the back of the magazine or read up on tips for how to use Lotus 1-2-3 more effectively on on Commodore 64 (a machine he is still proud to own). He could do anything.

Does your computer need a cassette recorder!?!?!? LOL

But it turns out my dad is not a machine. He is active, giving and loving but he’s no match for me in a foot race. Turns out he’s mortal. But he’s still more of an ant than I am. Something he inadvertently pointed out to me Wednesday morning.

Wednesday morning. New year’s day. A day off work. Julie and I stayed out late with friends and all of our children coming home around 1:00, four hours after my bedtime. Needless to say we slept in. That’s all grasshopper stuff.

I got up and got started. A snowstorm (well, what we call a snowstorm) was coming through in the next 12 hours and the livestock were not prepared for it. I moved the cows, filled their water, fed them a bale of hay and made plans for additional chores throughout the day before heading back home for breakfast.

But breakfast wasn’t ready. So I sat down to sneak in a few minutes of Super Mario 3D World with the kids…well, with the kids watching. An hour later I was still on the couch. That’s totally grasshopper territory.

Dad came by around that time and asked me what I was hoping to get done before the snow. Well, I need to get the greenhouse closed up, bed the pigs and cut firewood out of the limbs laying in a pile by the back door. The horses need their stalls cleaned. The cows will need another bale of hay (full cows are warm cows) and there is a guy coming to pick up a pig this afternoon. We need to butcher a couple of rabbits, clean their cages and haul rabbit manure to the greenhouse. Several pine trees have fallen over at the pond and need to be cut up. If we somehow manage to do all of that the bathroom needs a coat of primer and there is all kinds of housework to do. Time for this sluggard to start pretending to be an ant.

Firewood

I came in for a bite to eat around 2:00 then went back to it. The wind had picked up, the air had gotten colder but I still had work to do. Still no skin on the greenhouse but there is a handsome pile of wood in the house and the wood supply outside grew too. As the day wore on I had fewer and fewer helpers around me. I knew the work had to be completed. This was not optional. The kids went inside thinking I was a machine.

But we have already established that I am not. In fact, I think if my dad hadn’t come by to prod me I would have spent many more hours playing video games on the couch Wednesday.

I know what needs to be done but I’m comfortable. Maybe too comfortable. The more effective I am at being an ant the more I want to be a grasshopper. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the work. I had a ball Wednesday. But the couch is comfy. And the fence was working before. Surely it’s still working today…if not, that’s not so big a deal…right?

Too many days like that and the wood pile disappears. The pigs get stressed. The cows lose weight. Our savings get depleted. The cupboards go bare.

On the other hand, all work and no play make Jack a dull boy.

I have to both get my work done and take some time off. This is really coming into focus for us this week as Sunday we butchered a 400# hog, Tuesday we stayed out late with friends, Wednesday we did everything listed above, Thursday we had other friends for dinner, Friday we had family dinner plans and Saturday we finally finished the greenhouse, moved the cows and combined the pullets into the layer flock. As I finish this post on Sunday morning I am tired. Tired both from the ant stuff and from the grasshopper stuff.

I have to keep it in balance. My kids need to see that I am not a machine. I am human. I am dedicated to my family. Sometimes that dedication takes me away to restock the cupboards. Sometimes that dedication is expressed in playing board games. A little dose of ant. A little dose of grasshopper.

If we include Julie in the equation the average slides strongly toward ant. She’s a machine.

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Battening the Hatches

We are in for a few days of cold, snow and wind. The forecast is suggesting double-digit negative low temperatures for Sunday and Monday. Monday’s high won’t even reach zero and winds are expected from 20-30 mph. Finally, depending on when you check the forecast they are suggesting anywhere from 1-12 inches of snow. You may think that sounds mild. I think it sounds like I need to get ready.

Snow

Forecast by wunderground.com

Cows are no big deal. I’ll just walk them up to the barn and lock them in the lot Saturday evening. They should be warm and out of the wind in the open bay of the barn. Chores will be much easier with them there. We’ll just toss down a few bales of straw for bedding and ride this thing out. I’ll have to get the skin on my new greenhouse Saturday morning so I can move the chickens in there. Not sure why I waited so long to build that greenhouse. Lazy I guess. I’ll also have to build roost space in the greenhouse and mount the nest boxes within. We’ll put the rabbits and ducks in the other greenhouse. I don’t think the ducks care either way but management will be easier with them there. The remaining pigs should be fine in their deep bedding.

That leaves the house. I need to bring in oak I can split easily, hedge that will burn hot, some larger hackberry logs that will burn for a long time and I need to make some stick bundles to help start the fire easily. Beyond that? I’ll make sure the Burkey is full and we have some broth on the wood stove. Maybe Julie can bake a loaf or two of bread…a rare treat! The kids and I have a few board games we need to spend some time with. Agricola has proven difficult.

Hopefully this will just last a couple of days and we’ll be back to our normal winter schedule. Looks like 30s and more snow and ice all next week. That will really test the cow’s ability to dig through deep snow to find grass. But who knows how the forecast will change in the next 7 days.

Wild times. Doing our best to deal with what comes our way. Hope you are prepared.

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Something New For Tomorrow

Our pastor was unable to preach this past weekend so an assistant minister took over at the last minute and knocked it out of the park. During the sermon he said,

If you want something you’ve never had you’ll have to do something you’ve never done.

That quote didn’t originate with Ward Cusic. It is also not from Thomas Jefferson. It may have originated with Nike…but who cares. I’m glad Ward shared it. And with that in mind,

Welcome to 2014. What are you going to do this year? It’s time to be serious about it. Where are you going? What are you doing? Why are you doing it?

We are big on vision. Huge. Julie and I have a number of lifetime goals…things so far out of reach they are hard to imagine (5,000 cows). But we chip away each day. We make plans. To get there we have to go here first. To do that we have to do this. You can see why the quote above resonated with me.

Vision is such a part of my life I talk about it with people constantly…often leading to awkward conversations as I have shared before. It goes something like this:

Easy Question: Where do you want to be when you are 80?
Typical Answer: Oh, I guess I’ll be retired. Maybe taking care of my grandchildren or playing golf.

Harder Question: What do you have to do in the next 10 years to make that future a reality?
Uncomfortable Answer: Oh, I guess I need to…I don’t know. Make a few investments? Keep my job? Maybe get a raise?

Seemingly Impossible Question: Great! What are you going to do in 2014 to make yourself a more valuable employee or begin saving for the future?
Squirming Answer: Um….

Last Question: What are you going to do today to make your retirement dream happen?
No Answer. Usually no audience.

Today I moved my small herd of cattle. I made sure they had water. I checked their mineral. I decided to do with less sleep to bring tomorrow’s reality closer in line with my vision. I got up early to move cows then drove work. The farm is too small to begin to pay our bills so in 2014 we are making plans to add cows. And a few sheep. Start gearing toward farrowing pigs. We are taking over management of 40 additional acres of the farm we bought recently. A little at a time. We learn, we do, we evaluate the results…always adding to the accumulated knowledge, skill and wealth. If you want to manage 5,000 cows you should learn to manage 500 cows. If you want to learn to manage 500 cows you should learn to manage 50 cows….from 5 cows. Build slowly. Take your time. Learn, do and evaluate your results. Rinse and repeat. Keeping my day job along the way.

Many of you visit our blog because you dream of that magical someday when you’ll own a farm of your own. I think that’s awesome. I am excited for you. When is it going to happen? What are you doing today – right now – to make it real? Are you actually reading that stack of books from the library? Have you worked and re-worked your budget to eliminate waste? Do you even have a household budget? There are better resources out there for budgeting so let’s say you’ve already improved your financial defense and your are still behind. It’s time to step up the offense too. How can you earn more money? Art of Manliness has a great series on building a business on the side of your primary vocation (that’s what I’m doing with the farm). But that may not be enough. I mean, we’re talking about buying a farm here, not just buying a lawn mower. We need some serious cash. And fast.

I was reading Bruce King’s blog this morning and found this quote.

“What brought you here”, says I.  “Well, ” he says “I was working on a ranch in Wyoming.  it was a pretty big place; about 96,000 acres, and one day I was riding back to the bunkhouse with the owner, and I asked him how I could start farming, and he said something that really hit home for me.”

“what was that?”

“He said ‘you’ll never get here working for me’.  He told me that I needed to go get a job and earn some money and then come and ranch; that working on the ranch would never get me to owning one.   So that’s what I did.  I went back to school and got a degree, and I’m just about done with working here.  I’ve been here six years, and heading back to Wyoming with the money I’ve saved to buy a ranch. ”

“So you moved here with the goal of earning a nest egg to buy a ranch back there?”

“yep”

Now, you may think it’s odd for the guy who has very public disagreements with his mother about the return on investment of a college degree to quote a guy saying his key to success was getting a college degree but it’s not odd at all. I don’t disagree with college. I question the ROI. At some point we look for alternatives. How can you improve your earnings? Are there alternatives for education? Professional certification?

Are there alternative ways to achieve your farm dream? Could you farm an urban lot? I realize this sounds extreme but could you make a less but keep a higher percentage if you moved to another country? Could you buy land cheaper elsewhere? I mean, if your goal is to live off of your savings and produce much of your own food in your retirement, maybe Nicaragua fits your goals better than Illinois does. How’s that for something you’ve never done?

But how will you get there from here?

You see where you want to go. It’s way off in the distance. But you don’t have to cover the entire distance today. Today you just have to get to tomorrow…the tomorrow that inches you closer to your ultimate vision. What are you going to do today? What you did yesterday didn’t get you where you want to go. It got you here. Today you have to do something else…something more…something new for tomorrow. What are you going to do today that you haven’t done before?

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The Return of Surplus

Being the huge fan of farm economics that I am, and being decidedly in favor of individual freedom and thinking the best of my fellow man and accepting, as I do, that the Earth is not just a place to put my stuff but is, instead, a treasure to be…erm…treasured, and because a friend recently emailed me about the questionable sanity of male bloggers with oddly disjointed posts, I offer you this bit of self-indulgence. I present to you…

The Return of Surplus (available in HD)

Surplus is coming back. Let’s return to the world of plenty. My favorite college class was taught by a long-braided hippie lady who seemingly always wore a green dress and was happy to let me be wrong about whatever as long as I could back up my position. She taught a class titled “Nature and the American Experience” or some such nonsense. (Have I ever mentioned that I have a generally negative view of college for unlicensed professions (or of gov’t licensing of professionals? (come on…at least I’m giving you something to think about.))) Anyway, this instructor, whose name has evaporated from memory (Dr.? Ms.? Jan …something?), could not have been nicer and left me with a positive impression of what a hippie person could, and in some ways should be. Julie and I aspire to be similarly accepting of others. And we don’t use shampoo. And we compost our wastes. And we have a big garden. And I have a beard…for now. And I’m generally against war…especially when the warring party considers the best defense to be a good offense. Or when “war” is practiced by hitting wedding parties with missiles. Our real-life hippie cred is way above average.

So anyway, I propose that surplus is coming back into style. It’s what the cool kids are doing. The hipsters. To be clear, I was planting trees before planting trees was cool. Not that it matters. A planted tree is a planted tree, cool or not. And my beard has nothing to do with being a hippie (I’m really a lousy hippie) and nothing to do with hunting (I’m a lousy hunter) and nothing to do with hipster culture (hipsters should laugh ironically at that) and everything to do with having been the hairiest kid in school…being called “Wolfman” at age 12 because I had the beginnings of a beard then.

How am I doing on the disjointed thing? Does this qualify as questionably sane?

There are three permaculture ethics and depending on the bent of the author writing about them you’ll see a different wording for each. The more libertarian writers (you know, leave people alone, let them do what they do as long as they don’t violate the rights of others) tend to write them this way:
1. Care for the Earth
2. Care for People
3. Return of Surplus

The more totalitarian authors (the kind who like to tell other people what is best for them…because it’s for the children) write it out this way:
1. Earth Care
2. People Care
3. Fair Share

Isn’t that nice? It rhymes and it makes us feel good! It’s fair!

Obviously I think there’s a big difference between the two. A big difference. And I’m going to pick on the kind of person who thinks the world would be better if he could just impose his will on others. If you are one of those people, I respect your opinions but I secretly think you’re a tool. If we interpret “Fair Share” as freely giving resources to others we have made Ethics 2 and 3 redundant. I believe the ethics are (or should be) distinct. Hence the “Return of Surplus” in the title.

Rather than focus on how we can feel good about giving apples away to people who don’t have apples (which may or may not be worth doing but is covered by Ethic #2, not a part of this post) we need to focus on returning surplus back into the system. Pretend it is a closed loop. A finite Earth. That when you throw plastic away it doesn’t magically go away. It just gets stored somewhere else. Forever. When you sit on your tookus doing nothing you are taking from the system without returning to it. Just converting oxygen into CO2 and food into…well, not …food…for humans. You are consuming resources and returning nothing of value.

So what do we do with our surplus plastic? I don’t know. Try not to buy stuff wrapped in plastic.

But let’s back off of the Captain Planet message and focus on the farm for a minute. The farm is a closed loop. Cows don’t produce plastic. Cows don’t eat plastic (in fact, those Arkansas tumbleweeds are quite dangerous for cows). We capture sunlight and rain while using plants and fungus to mine minerals out of the soil. Our management of the cows takes full advantage of the stored energy and nutrients while leaving a residual of plant material, manure and disturbance to enhance future forage growth. It’s all an ongoing cycle of transition from one state to the next. The only thing in true surplus is the sunlight and we try to make the most of it. There is no surplus manure. That’s food for worms and dung beetles and fly larvae. There are no surplus flies. Those are food for birds and frogs and ???. If I sell the manure, the hay, the maggots or the worms I have disrupted some portion of the cycle. Somewhat. When properly managed, the relentless onslaught of sunlight brings a level of abundance. We’ll sell surplus cattle to keep the system in balance.

We have removed – not returned – some surplus by selling cattle. So what is all this “return” nonsense?

I have a distinct lack of cash. No surplus cash is available (or ever will be…I promise!). I take surplus cattle and exchange them for needed cash. The cash is returned to the farm. Maybe in the form of fencing materials. Maybe in the form of Irish whiskey to help me cope with the lack of fencing materials. Some may think any Irish whiskey is surplus Irish whiskey. I disagree. There are things we enjoy just for the sake of enjoyment. Things that keep us on the farm. Things that make the back-breaking, heart-wrenching work more bearable. Not just booze (though that is nice) but books and comfy chairs and new boots. Things that weren’t sourced on the farm but grant us a measure of sustainability by keeping us fat and happy. Because if we weren’t fat and happy we wouldn’t be doing this. And sometimes the whiskey helps. Only sometimes. I promise. (But sometimes it really helps. A lot.)

And being fat and happy is the goal. Heck, Crevecoeur wrote about it nearly 250 years ago as he was defining an American in Letter III (A book I read in the aforementioned hippie college class at least 18 years ago):

Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. Americans are the western pilgrims, who are carrying along with them that great mass of arts, sciences, vigour, and industry which began long since in the east; they will finish the great circle. The Americans were once scattered all over Europe; here they are incorporated into one of the finest systems of population which has ever appeared, and which will hereafter become distinct by the power of the different climates they inhabit. The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born. Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labour; his labour is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest; can it want a stronger allurement? Wives and children, who before in vain demanded of him a morsel of bread, now, fat and frolicsome, gladly help their father to clear those fields whence exuberant crops are to arise to feed and to clothe them all; without any part being claimed, either by a despotic prince, a rich abbot, or a mighty lord. I lord religion demands but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister, and gratitude to God; can he refuse these? The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence. –This is an American.

“…fat and Frolicsome, gladly help their father”. Sweet! Men – Americans – no longer suffer from a surplus of forced free time. They are rewarded for their labor! Well, that was the American envisioned by Crèvecœur. I’ll leave it to the reader to decide if that every really came to be. Or if it was and was lost. Or if America is a place or an idea. Or if it is required of an American to live in the United States. Or if the United States has become increasingly welcoming or increasingly hostile toward Americans.

So that brings us to surpluses the farm can absorb. The farm can absorb all the manure my cows can drop. No problem. The farm can absorb all the labor my wife, children and I can spare. Further, the farm can absorb all the labor I can hire.

So let’s really address surpluses. It is not outside of the scope of imagination that I could grow more apples than I could eat. More, even, than I could feed to pigs. A true surplus. I have several options available to me. First, I could press a portion of the apples to make hard cider…making the farming more bearable…and the winters warmer. Possibly leading to additional children. Bonus. But let’s imagine that I have so many apples that I can make so much hard cider I couldn’t possibly begin to drink it all. Now, like the surplus cattle, I need to move these surpluses off of the farm. Unlike cattle, surplus apples are available in small quantities. It would be entirely possible for me to trade my surplus hard cider and exchange it for something you have in small surplus. And if you own nothing I suppose you might have time in surplus. And it just so happens that my farm can absorb all the time we can throw at it. There is always more work to do!

This is radically different than charity (and we make major allowances for charity, see Ethic #2), it is radically different than “Fair Share”. It really is fair. “I have this. You have that. Would you like to trade?” That’s very different than saying, “Don’t you feel guilty that you have so much when so many have so little?” Nobody has to hang their head. Nobody is a loser. There are no greedy bastards. No guy with all the apples. No guy with all the free time. It is a mutually beneficial convergence of surpluses. My surplus apples are being returned to the farm…whatever the form! Return of surplus.

Dad was recently approached about buying hay for a woman who keeps horses. She was turned in (to the horse feeding police?) because her horses were reportedly malnourished. The vet who examined them found that one was fine but not fat (horses around here are all fat), the other was old. You know…old. As in, may be lacking teeth and having a hard time maintaining weight because it is…old. But they’re collecting hay for her anyway. Grass grows in surplus in our part of the world. Pond edges, field edges the front yard (yeah), alfalfa that couldn’t be cut because it got too cold to cure and the always present roadsides. How about this, horse lady? How about you cancel your Satellite TV, you put your horse on a lead rope and you go soak up your excess time soaking up excess forage? You, the horse and the grass will all be better off for it. I mean, if you have Satellite TV and horses you can’t possibly need a share of my production/labor/assets/whatever. That doesn’t seem fair as I have neither Satellite TV nor horse…nor desire for either. But you and your equine can achieve an equitable trade for your free time and solve your feeding issues. Or just shoot/sell the dang horses and give yourself more completely to the gods of television.

Now I have ticked off totalitarian warmongers (republican or democrat), hippies, hipsters, hunters, horse-owners, people who value sitting on their couch, people who still believe the myth of the college degree and 90% of permaculturists. How’s that for a self-indulgent, questionably sane, rambling post?

If you are interested, the books I remember from that class were:
Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches from Eighteenth-Century America
A Sand County Almanac
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee

Go ahead. Check those out from the library, discuss them with a group of peers and give yourself 4 imaginary credits toward a fancy piece of paper. It may help you make a lot of money someday and costs much less than similar imaginary credits from our competitors.

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Turtles Under Glass

My brother-in-law and I took my children and nephews for a walk around the pond edge. The ice was nearly 2″ thick everywhere but the group of us together caused some fractures so we stayed in the shallows. We were looking for turtles. We found turtles…and more.

Bluegill

CommonPondTurtle

LeopardFrog

SnappingTurtle

SnappingTurtle2

Tadpole

The real value of the farm can’t be measured by the cattle we can raise. There is also the joy of taking a group of children around the edge of a frozen pond enjoying their squeals of delight and discovery.

Not only am I keeping this for them I am teaching them about it. Teaching them to enjoy it. This is stewardship.

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Christmas at Grandma’s

As a kid I thought it was odd but now…I don’t know…I think it’s kind of sweet. My grandparents were married on Christmas. If my dates are correct, today would be their 67th anniversary. (I originally posted that grandma and grandpa were married on Christmas eve. That will teach me to trust my memory. It took two weeks for anyone to correct me though…)

I have misplaced the newspaper clipping announcing their 50th anniversary. Here they are in the early 50’s. My grandpa in this picture is younger than I am now. That’s my mom in my grandma’s arms.

ChismFamilyManhood was thrust on my grandfather at an early age and he wore it well. Look at him. I don’ t measure up. I miss my grandparents.

I think everybody arrived earlier and earlier each year – in part for the fellowship, in part because there was some competition between an aunt and an uncle for favorite tender morsels. There was always mistletoe hanging in the house and Grandma loved to kiss us. The whole family would set up tables and squeeze into the back room for Christmas dinner. Dad would carve the meat, the buffet would be set out. Basically the same food every year. I got a slice or two of ham, at least two crescent rolls my aunt made, some frozen fruit salad my grandma always made and a slice of the squash pie my great aunt Marion still makes with a dob of cool whip.

I sat at the “kids table” in the SE corner of the room. Each year several of us conspired to unroll the youngest cousin’s crescent roll at dinner. Then we would race to pick our favorite spot in the living room and wait to open presents. A favorite cousin and I would sit by the fake fireplace, waiting with increasing impatience while somebody cleaned tables, washed dishes and otherwise added to our frustration.

Grandma and Grandpa would take their places in their recliners. The rest of the family would squeeze into the living room. Somebody would pass out presents and…well, manners were forgotten. Paper went flying. One older cousin would gather the paper as it flew his direction and stuff it behind the green couch. I mean, what else are we going to do with it? Every year was the same. Pajamas, bathrobe and socks.

Christmas

This must be around 1994 or 1995. My sister made me that Animaniacs/Marvin the Martian blanket I’m holding. My kids still use it.

Then all the grandkids would put on their jammies and stand in front of the Christmas tree for pictures. If not jammies, the girls got Christmas dresses. Maybe we would pose in the back room. Whatever the case, family pictures were a must. After that it’s all a blur. Toys, Grandma’s oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, hugs all around. Aunts and uncles and cousins leaving if the weather allowed. We usually stayed the night at grandma’s. Sister would sleep on the green couch, I would sleep on the vinyl couch with several blankets topped by a thin red quilt (Wow. I haven’t thought about that quilt in 20 years). The clock on the mantle would tick away the minutes until I fell asleep. I woke up when grandma would wind the clock in the morning.

Jammies

I must have been unhappy that grandma made me a clown doll. Or just tired. Who knows.

That was basically every Christmas of my life. There were small changes over time. Cousins started bringing friends, then dates…later spouses…then great-grandchildren in numbers beyond counting. I was no longer allowed to sit at the kids table. Somehow the house still fit us all. Somehow grandma made enough cookies. Somehow the septic tank couldn’t manage.

Family

The unwritten rule of Christmas is that you go to your grandmother’s house. Now my mother is grandma. My aunt is grandma. The next generation of first cousins play together at their respective grandma’s. I can only hope somebody brings crescent rolls. Julie makes my grandma’s cookies and has found a way to make them even better by adding peppermint oil. Out. Of. This. World!

Grandma wrote this recipe but she didn’t use a recipe. I have added notes for the way we bake these so they turn out more like hers. These were always in her freezer in quart bags. Get yourself a glass of milk and a whole bag of cookies and find a quiet place. Julie adds a few drops of (Vendor name censored by the FDA) peppermint oil as a final step.

OatmealCookies

The house has changed though. It’s not my grandma’s house anymore. I’m sorry to say it has lost some of that…that…feeling. Grandma’s furnishings and decorations are properly disbursed among the family. Her paintings, her painted saw blades, the buffet in the dining room, the mantle clock . It’s still grandma’s house but with my stuff in it. It’s not the same somehow…like our stuff doesn’t fit the house because it’s not grandma’s. We’ll figure it out. And like my grandparents we have four children. I look forward to seeing my grandchildren unrolling each other’s crescent rolls and hiding wrapping paper behind the couch and posing for pictures in their new jammies.

Dresses

So many things have changed. So many people are gone now. But my grandparents gave us a family culture, a set of our own traditions and love. My mom is helping deliver Christmas dresses to the great-granddaughters today. I don’t know if this sounds corny or if it sounds boring. I hope it sounds consistent. Consistency is what I got from my grandparents. Every time I saw them. Every visit to their house. Always the same. Always loved. No matter what.

No matter what.

(Updated to add a few extra pictures I found at mom’s house.)

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Budgeting Time

So, Chris. How much money do you make?

None of your business. But let me say this, we wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a job in town. 10 cows, 8 pigs and 100 layers and 1,000 broilers amount to little more than a hobby. This blog earns me a negative $27 each year. Nobody pays me to write. I just need a creative outlet and appreciate your readership and feedback. That said, I’m uncertain of the value of the time I spend writing. Certainly something to consider.

With that in mind, it’s time to figure out what we’re going to do next year, why we are going to do it and how we are going to pay for it. No real answers in this post, just questions.

I need the farm to grow. I have this weird dream that someday I could derive the majority of our income from the farm itself. But it’s not going to happen with 10 cows. It may not happen with cows at all. But we’re going to drive that direction until we hit a roadblock. How much will that crash and burn cost me? A lot. But how much will it cost me next year? We have to figure that out.

And not just that. We have to budget pasture usage. What ground will rest? What will be stockpiled? Where will we plant trees? Where will we calve? When will we schedule a bull? What will that cost? Should we AI everyone and just use the bull for cleanup? Where will we cut hay? When? With what? Are we going to put up a few thousand square bales this year or should we buy a round-baler? What about next year? Will we have enough cows next year that we’ll utilize the whole pasture and just buy in whatever hay we need? How can I partner more closely with my father to build a multi-generational future now?

What about pigs? I am already receiving orders for July pigs. How many should I raise? Where will we raise them? They are awful hard on pastures. How will they fit into the rotation?

How about chickens? We obviously need more layers as we can’t begin to meet the demand for eggs. But that also indicates we need to raise prices. What is the next price target? How many customers will that scare away? Should I shoot for 250 layers June 1 and begin a 6-month replacement program, selling birds at their first molt? Should I keep birds until their second molt and make stewing hens? We haven’t seen a lot of success marketing stewing hens to this point. Maybe I should protect first year layers behind netting but just let second year birds roam behind the cows in egg-mobiles, knowing we will lose some. How can I lower our feed requirements? Can I eliminate soy?

And turkeys!? Just today I got orders for turkeys. Do they really fit into our operation?

If the overarching goal is for me to earn my full-time income from the farm and to build an empire that will include my children and their families, well…I have to get off of my tookus, sharpen my pencil and figure some of this stuff out.

There is a lot to think about with the coming year. A lot for me to figure out. Not just goals but how to pay for goals and how to determine which goals will pay for themselves. And this is just the farm…just a percentage of our total household budget. I have the rest of the household to figure out too.

This is a lot like work. I hope you are working on it too…both in your business and in your personal life. Money is hard to earn and easy to spend. A little purposeful reflection and restraint go a long way.

Next week may simply be next week. But next week is also next year. Next week or next year, head toward it with a plan…a destination in mind. Don’t be like Alice.

‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. ‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where—’ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘—so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’

Where are you going?

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Phosphorus. Who Knew?

Our mineral array from Free Choice Enterprises arrived Thursday morning. The company sent enough to last 10 cows a couple of months. Let me say that differently. They sent a bag of everything plus extra trace mineral arrays and extra extra phosphorus.

Good thing too. The cows attacked the phosphorus. Attacked. It.

Minerals

As frost was arriving we were feeding comfrey to the cows. Apparently comfrey is a phosphorus accumulator. The cows loved it. Other phosphorus accumulators include dock and shagbark hickory. These are all plants that grow deep root systems over years and years…involving relationships with fungal environments. I don’t remember seeing the cows eating dock. Any tree leaves within reach are fair game though. I can’t discount the possibility that comfrey may simply taste good.

But why do the cows think we are short on phosphorus? There’s plenty of manure on the pasture all year. All manner of N-P-K has been spread on my farm for the last 60 years…or harvested and fed into my cattle…and dumped on the pasture. How could we possibly be short on phosphorus? It’s not like there’s a shortage of dock growing in my pastures.

I’ll tell you what I think. I probably won’t know if I’m right in my lifetime but I’ll tell you anyway.

I think it’s because the pastures have been grazed down to nothing forever. No residual left to cover the dirt summer or winter. Just pulses of spring and fall lush growth. That is an environment that favors bacterial growth…it inhibits fungal growth. Further, the cows tend to manure under shelter…to rest under shade then unload before walking away. Some percentage of the manure ends up on the pasture but a large percentage of it is concentrated under trees.

But over the next 50 years or so, if we can keep managing our grazing for high residual, we’ll see an increase in fungal activity and a more even distribution of manure. It will help when we establish diverse strips of trees on contour in our pastures. It also helps to have high diversity in our pastures.

But I have to wonder about the buffalo. What would a herd of buffalo do if they came across a phosphorus lick as they grazed the prairie? Would they stop to partake?

Do children like candy?

Maybe that’s what I’m seeing. Maybe it’s not so much a nutritional deficiency as just the cows stocking up on something hard to find while it’s on sale. We’ll see if the rate of consumption continues over the next 20 years…but I’m not jumping to conclusions if it does. What I’m really looking for is cows giving birth to healthy calves without difficulty. Cows without health problems. Phosphorus? Meh. I just have to trust that the cows know what is good for them…in this case. I don’t take the same position concerning lush alfalfa though.

All I really know is that I need to close the loop on my land as much as possible to keep our nutrients at home. Keeping our dirt covered and our roots deep should help with that. The cows and I will come to some accord concerning mineral consumption. So far I’m liking what I’m seeing.

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More Strip Grazing Goodness

My shorthorns have never had to work for their dinner in the winter. I mean, it’s one thing to put them out on the frozen ground and ask them to clean up orchardgrass and leftover alfalfa. It’s another thing entirely to ask them to bulldoze through 6″ of snow to graze the grass beneath. Worse, we asked the cows to break a new trail across the pond dam and meander to the barn to access their new pasture. We rely on the Jerseys to move the herd. We opened up a new path and showed it to Flora. She led the way. Cows were moved. No pushing, no hollering, nobody got angry. We just let the heifers follow another cow. She knows what to do. No big whoop.

PondDam

Same deal grazing in the snow. The shorthorns don’t seem to know what to do. Again the Jerseys knew the drill and they led the way. Well, one of them led the way. The other follows in our footsteps. Literally. She eats where our feet revealed the grass beneath. The Shorthorns figured it out quickly enough and soon cleared and grazed large areas of the pasture.

GrazingDecemberSnow

This ground hasn’t been grazed since late July. Last I checked there was 14-18″ of fescue standing as well as a good mix of radishes, turnips and the remains of summer forages like sudangrass. Hopefully this will give us some relief from feeding hay. Three days last week we fed two square bales/day among the 10 cows. I know that’s not much but I’m not happy about it anyway. According to our hay pile, we have to do better.

The cows are in the SE corner of the field where the water supply is (a narrowed and compressed #24 from this post). Here’s the same picture from April of last year after we let the horses graze it to the nubbins. Compare to the picture above to notice how much brush grew back in 8 months.

AprilPasture1

We made a narrow strip running to the North. Next we’ll open up a strip to the west a little at a time, not restricting access to places the cattle have already grazed. I know this will allow some concentration of nutrients but it will also allow the cows to pick their winter shelter and access the water supply. So, yes, I’m lazy.

The winter shelter thing was a recent comment from my father…his concern was that strip grazing wasn’t allowing the cows to find the place in the pasture where they are most comfortable during a storm. As we move them around they have usually access to the leeward side of a hill or just to a comfy spot under a tree…especially when a storm is brewing. We try to make sure there are a variety of options in each section for winter grazing. Summer grazing has its own list of considerations (shade) but winter is more about shelter from wind than about keylines. Also, I have to balance cow comfort against winter feed requirements and future pasture productivity. The cows are the tool, not the target. I think there is a middle ground that suits everyone’s goals. Happy cows, healthy pasture, even manure distribution, lowered (or eliminated) hay requirements. That’s what we’re shootin’ for anyway.

The snow should melt this week making things easier for the moos. How’s grazing at your place?